1. Field of the Disclosure
This disclosure relates generally to methods and systems for determining a fill pattern of multi-dose medicament containers for a plurality of prescriptions, nutraceuticals and/or over-the-counter medications.
2. Background Description
Traditional methods of packaging prescription medicaments include dispensing an entire single prescription's worth of the pills into a single medicament container affixed with a label displaying (among other data) patient identification, pill identification, dosage, and dosing regime instructions. If a patient needs to take multiple medications, a single, filled medicament container is typically issued for each prescription. Furthermore, if a patient is required to take the multiple medications at different times of the day and/or night, the patient must have all of the single, filled medicament containers readily available, and the patient must remember which and how many pill(s) needs to be taken when. Thus, traditional methods of packaging multiple prescription medicaments result in inconvenience to the patient as entire sets of single, filled medicament containers must be brought along. Other undesirable effects of traditional packaging methods include difficulty for the patient in remembering how many and what pill needs to be taken when, and whether or not the pill(s) have been ingested at the required time. These types of problems may lead to a patient failing to take a medicine at the appropriate time or taking too much medicine within a short period of time, which may cause adverse affects to patient health.
Recent advances in prescription packaging have attempted to mitigate these problems. For instance, a multi-dose blister pack may be used to fill one or more prescriptions for a patient. Examples of multi-dose blister packs may be found in U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/947,169 entitled “Nested Multi-Dose Blister Pack,” the entire disclosure of which is incorporated by reference. A machine and process for filling multi-dose blister packs may be found in U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/940,790 entitled “Multi-Dose Filling Machine and Process,” the entire disclosure of which is also incorporated by reference.
Multi-dose blister packs may contain a plurality of individual blister cells, each of which may hold one or more pills of different medications prescribed for a patient. One multi-dose blister pack, for instance, may be labeled “morning,” so that each individual blister cell on the “morning” pack may contain the complete set of pills from a patient's one or more prescriptions that are to be ingested in the morning. The patient may also receive additional filled, multi-dose blister packs that have individual blister cells each containing the correct multiple medications to be ingested at “noon” and “night.” Alternatively, blister packs may be filled to a different level of granularity. For example, a single multi-dose blister pack may have rows labeled “morning,” “noon,” and “night” and have columns labeled with the day of the week. So, on Tuesday night, the patient would ingest the correct set of pills from his/her one or more prescriptions by taking the pills from the individual blister cell located at the intersection of the “night” row and the “Tuesday” column. Of course, indicia of dosing regimes are not limited to the above examples and may use any indicia corresponding to a dosing regime. Other fill patterns of multi-dose blister packs are also possible.
Multi-dose blister packs may be perforated into individual, easily-portable blister cells. The blister cells on a single multi-dose blister pack may be similarly sized, or blister cells may be sized differently on a single multi-dose blister pack. Each blister cell may be labeled on the back to identify different medications contained within the blister cell, and may also list patient information, time/day/date information for ingestion and/or other dosing regime instructions, and the like. A patient may separate out from the pack the specific blister cells that s/he will need during a specific time period, and thus does not need to carry multiple large single filled medicament containers for each of his/her one or more prescriptions. The patient is not required to sort out the dosages of multiple medications for each medication's dosing regime. Additionally, the labeling on the blister packs may aid the patient in keeping track of whether medications have been taken.
Another example of an advance in prescription packaging is an individual medicament pouch or packet. Examples of individual medicament pouch/packets may be found in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/741,539 entitled “Serially Connected Packets with Grasping Portion” and in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/741,542 entitled “Serially Connected Packets with End Indicator.” The total combination of medications that are prescribed may be filled into an individual medicament pouch or packet. A label may be affixed or printed directly onto the pouch that displays the time/day/date for ingestion and/or other dosing regime information, patient information, and medicaments contained inside the pouch. Thus, a patient need only port along the pouches that s/he will need during a specific time period. The patient need not determine what combination of pills needs to be taken at various times, as the individual filled pouches provide the groupings. The time/day/date label assists the patient in remembering whether or not the medicaments have been ingested or not.
Thus, a “multi-dose medicament container,” as used herein, is a receptacle that holds a set of medications corresponding to one or more prescriptions of a patient, usually (but not necessarily) with overlapping dosing regimes, e.g., an intersection of dosing regimes so that multiple medication(s) may be packaged together. A multi-dose medicament container may have a single receptacle, such as a traditional prescription container or a pouch. A multi-dose medicament container may have multiple receptacles, such as a blister pack. Other types of multi-dose medicament containers may be possible. A “dosing regime,” as used herein, is an indication of how to take pills in accordance with the directions on a prescription or medication directions. For example, a dosing regime may be “with an evening meal,” “before or after a meal,” “one capsule every other day on an empty stomach” and the like.
Filling the multi-dose blister packs, pouches, and other multi-dose medicament container configurations may be done manually or automatically. A “fill pattern,” as used herein, is defined as a mapping of pills from one or more prescriptions of a patient into one or more receptacles of one or more multi-dose medicament containers. Fill patterns may be complex. For example, in the case of a blister pack, if Prescription A is required to be ingested once a day, and Prescription B is required to be ingested twice a day, the fill pattern may perform the appropriate mapping so that each labeled blister cell of the blister pack contains the appropriate combination of pills. A “morning” blister cell may be mapped to contain two pills, one of Prescription A and one of Prescription B. An “evening” blister cell may be mapped to contain only one of Prescription B's pills.
If Prescription C is added to a patient's medication regiment, but the duration of Prescription C is two weeks shorter than Prescriptions A and B, the mapping may become even more complex. Pills from prescription C may be mapped, for instance, to only the middle few rows of the blister packs corresponding to the dates of the duration of prescription C.
Problems with fill patterns, however, may occur when multiple differently sized and shaped pills are mapped to a single receptacle of a multi-dose medicament container. The necessary combination of pills to comply with one or more dosing regimes may not physically fit into a single blister cell, pouch or receptacle. Individual blister cells, pouches or receptacles of a multi-dose medicament container may require a sufficient air cushion so that pills are not crushed or punctured. A need exists for a method and system for determining a volume-based fill pattern of a multi-dose medicament container, so that the combined multiple pills fit appropriately into the container receptacles, the fill pattern is easily determined and communicated, and the benefits and ease of use of the multi-dose medicament containers for the patient are maintained.